Frontiers in Art Research, 2022, 4(15); doi: 10.25236/FAR.2022.041514.
She Shiyuan
College of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China
A variety of emotional forms are born out of physical modifications. As encounters differ, emotion always changes between pleasure and pain, and the variations of emotion are called “affect”. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is presented with multiple affects, mainly flowing among three layers: Victor Frankenstein, the creature and R. Walton, representative of readers. Their affects, being the change of “force of existing” and “the power of acting”, show the close relationship between emotion and body power. This paper examines the everlasting variations based on the affect theory to provide a new approach to understanding the characters’ seemingly unreasonable selects. In analysing these affects, we can therefore gain insight into their destinies and what is warned and reminded through Mary Shelley’s epoch-making work when science and reason were paramount.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Affect theory, Reader’s response
She Shiyuan. Three Layers of Affects in Frankenstein. Frontiers in Art Research (2022) Vol. 4, Issue 15: 71-76. https://doi.org/10.25236/FAR.2022.041514.
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